This Charming Children's Book Will Unleash Your "Inner Kooky"

Embrace your inner kooky with the new children's book Cecil the Pet Glacier by Matthea Harvey and Giselle Potter.

Randall de Sève believes that reading with your child doesn't have to be a selfless act—that sharing kids books should be enjoyable for adults, too. She's excited to recommend some of her favorites in this regular new column, along with fun, story-based activites to go with them.

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My 12-year old has a big heart, and she'll bond with most anything. A few weeks ago, it was a brick. (I kid you not.) Said brick was sitting in the dirt of our front garden, and my daughter did that thing she does that usually means trouble: "Awww," she exclaimed, in a drawn out high pitch. Uh-oh, I thought — and before I knew it, "Bricky" had a shoebox bed on our stoop. (No, Bricky couldn't come inside, what with Bobbie, Tuck, Cheese, Pixie, and a host of other "friends" crowding my daughter's room.)

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Ruby Small, the young protagonist of Cecil, the Pet Glacier (Schwartz & Wade, 2012) is not my daughter. And the little glacier calf that follows her home from Norway is, according to Ruby, "not [her] pet...It's just a piece of ice."

Cold.

And, as it turns out, untrue.

This delightful and original story by Matthea Harvey, with its lushly colored, offbeat images by Giselle Potter, had me from page one. Okay, I thought, this "normal" kid with three identical dolls named Jennifer, who are also identical to her, has some kind of inner kooky — she just hasn't embraced it yet.

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And, indeed, that is the point here.

Ruby goes on vacation to Horfensnufen, Norway with her eccentric parents, topiary and tiara sculptors who embarrass her to no end by (among other things) playing miniature ping-pong on the plane and eating their food upside-down. Feeling "it was hard to believe she was related to these people," Ruby asks them for a pet to stave off loneliness. Mrs. Small suggests a tank of moon medusa jellyfish; Mr. Small offers a flea circus. To her great dismay — and her parents' delight — Ruby gets Cecil.

Who, naturally — because this book never strays from its own crazy logic — warms (yup, warms) Ruby's heart by rescuing a Jennifer — and warms mine by helping Ruby to see how wonderful unusual can be.

Okay, maybe it's time to let Bricky in the house, after all. And time for your family to embrace its own inner kooky. Pet rock, anyone?